Originally Posted by c00lkatz;11766536
Dude you are going to have a hell of a time properly watercooling dual GPU's in a mATX case. Not saying it can't be done but it will be like fitting a 480 rad in a Antec 1200 or something.

The GTX580 is a beast of a card, and with a decent overclock on water, it will be even more beastly.

I'll put it to you like this. I have a single GTX470 OC'd to 900MHz core that keeps up with the GTX480/GTX570, and I have a hard time justifying a second for SLI. It plays every game I throw at it so well, I don't even see SLI as being necessary for anything more than e-peen and benchmarks.

To me, it's a no-brainer, IF you have the cash. I would say stick with the 460's if this were a decent mid-tower or full tower case, but with mATX thrown in the mix, just go with the single card and save the hassle.

Thanks for the reply,

Here goes the whole story: I am an engineering student, and I have a full machine shop at my disposal on campus. I have been planning and saving money (from my actually fantastic minimum wage job) with the intent of custom building a mATX case kind of in the style of the Mac G4 Cube, but a bit bigger. So probably a 12 by 12 footprint, and about 16 inches tall. The case would have arched air intakes at the bottom, with the ports at the bottom of the case, accessible from below(barely, I don't really need to plug and unplug stuff that much anyway). The air would flow from bottom to top, with the rads (probably two 240s) placed next to each other, blowing air out the top of the case.

Hopefully, I will be able to do this all out of anodized aluminum (somewhere in the range of an 1/10 to an 1/8 of an inch thick), keeping external fittings to a minimum. The only opening visible from the outside would be the slotted exhaust for the radiators on the top. I would have some sort of cage holding all the components, so I can have the casing just slide on from the top. I've done a couple ACad renderings early in the fall, but I don't have them with me, I'm home for Christmas. The main reason for the thread is figuring out what I need to get in terms of waterblocks, and then hopefully I'll get a project thread going...

And to all complaining about my monitor, I'm waiting on $500 from an amazon refund before I spring on a nice monitor.

(This is not an advertisemenet in any way shape or form, but) I have a pair of EVGA GTX 460 EE Superclocked, haven't been overclocked (other than the factory one, of course) at all, and have been lovingly cared for. The OCN ecosystem would be the best/easiest place to list them, but I can't... winkwink

And I didn't OC these cards because my case is about the size of a shoebox, and the cards haven't done anything to deserve such torture.

Originally Posted by c00lkatz;11710656
In your case I would get rid of the 460's (both of them) and get a single 580. Less heat, less clutter, more room/space, easier H2O install, and similar performance.

You have to consider a lot of factors other than just pure performance when certain needs/requirements come into play.

1) Dual 460's would run hotter than a single 580, especially in a case with limited space and airflow
2) Setting up an efficient dual GPU plus CPU loop in a mATX system takes a lot of planning and work versus a single GPU
3) Dual GPU's take up a lot of space on a mATX board leaving very little room for expansion
4) The 580 is plenty powerful for any game out there right now, especially when you take into account the massive overclock that is capable with H2O
5) He would have to buy one expensive GPU block vs two, and his heat load would go way down with a single GPU vs two, thus lowering his rad requirements

Maybe you should take those points into consideration before posting nonsense.Edited by c00lkatz - 12/25/10 at 12:38am

I came from a GTX 460 768MB and it wasn't far off on being able to play everything @ nice setting @ 1080p. If u have the 1GB and also in SLI I can only imagine how sweet it looks. That being said u also have to think about the longer u hold on to the GTX 460s the more ur resell value goes down. Since ATI just dropped some new cards I think a price drop is coming also to put the squeeze back on Nvidia.

just seen your thread and pretty exciting, but im sure he wants to do the mods all at once, given the mATX size im changing my mind AGAIN(worse than SOME women), lol. gtx580 = less clutter, if you can, go 4 it

Agree with those who say keep the 460s and do not WC them. No one is complaining about the monitor, its just that the monitor is very much your "bottleneck" for any kind of real world perf.

Get your new monitor in and then see how the system holds up and then take a step back and evaluate what subsystem, if any, would yield the best results from an upgrade. With OC 460s in SLI you are already graphics subsystem heavy, IMO.